


Terms of Service

by futuresoon



Category: Persona 3, Persona 4
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3611592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuresoon/pseuds/futuresoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a guest of the Velvet Room dies after the completion of their journey, they are given an offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terms of Service

There has not always been an attendant in the Velvet Room.

There has always been a Velvet Room--as long as there was a space for it, anyway. Always something that needs to be done. Always something on the horizon, needing to be dealt with, and always people who needed assistance to deal with it. Great things, small things; always, always something needed.

But not always an attendant.

That did not come until several somethings down the line, when Igor was tired of handling everything himself--or maybe just wanted someone to show off to--and happened upon a situation, and asked a question, and received an answer.

After that, there was always an attendant.

Gender varied, faces varied, but for some reason the process always bleached the colors, and Igor always added his own touch to the eyes. There was no reason for them to look human. 

They weren’t, after all; not anymore.

Down and down along the line it goes. Guests come and guests go. The Velvet Room waits for its next visitor. A person with silver hair and yellow eyes holds a book, and thinks about what sort of person they might get to show it to next. Igor says little; Igor never does very much, except for the times when he does quite a bit, but that certainly isn’t every day.

Right now, one of those people stands in silence as someone they knew from a while ago returns to the Room, not of her own choosing.

“Welcome back,” he says.

She stands up, dusting off her knees, and looks around. “I didn’t expect to see this place again,” she says quietly. “I suppose this is the last time I’ll see anything? That was quite a long fall.”

Igor smiles in that odd way of his, like he knows everything and you don’t. “Long indeed, and with an unfortunate end. But it does not have to be _your_ end.”

The person doesn’t say anything; this part isn’t in his purview.

“You always speak in circles,” the woman says. “What are you offering here? I thought I finished my journey. The Shadows are gone. We purged the village of them; everything is safe now. Has something happened?”

“Shadows are never truly gone,” Igor says. “Even since your journey, there have been several iterations. You did not need to know about them; in one instance, not even the participants do, these days. What has your life been like, in an ordinary world?”

“…peaceful,” the woman says, slowly, warily. “I returned to my family. They have a husband lined up for me; it’s well past time for that, and my family needs it. He’s tolerable enough.”

“But you know you’ll never see him again,” Igor says. “Whatever the two of you could have been, it is forever lost.”

The woman swallows. “Yes,” she says.

“Moreover…you say ‘peaceful’, you say ‘tolerable’. You did not say _happy.”_

The woman narrows her eyes. “Happiness is a luxury,” she says. “I never expected it.”

“But you did have it, for a while. When the fate of the world was in your hands. Surely you can’t deny its thrill.”

“…I can’t, it’s true,” the woman says, her voice softening as she recalls the days that seem so far-off now. “The friends I made are very dear to me. And there’s a certain satisfaction to be had when saving others. But that’s been over for a while.”

Igor’s eyes glint. “And what about that boy? Do you think of him, still?”

The woman stiffens, and her voices hardens. “That’s enough,” she says. “Tell me what you want.”

Igor spreads his hands wide, the way he does when he shuffles the cards. “I only want to make you an offer. You remember Nicolas, do you not?”

“Of course I do,” the woman says, shifting her eyes towards him. “Do you need something?”

Finally, he speaks. “There is something I would like to do,” he says. “But it conflicts with my duties. I cannot remain here.”

The woman does not ask what he wants to do; she knows him well enough for that.

“My master cannot go unassisted,” he continues. “And so we have an offer.

“If you were to take my place,” he says, “I would be free to leave.”

The woman is silent for a long moment before she says, “I would control the Compendium?”

“One cannot truly _control_ the Compendium,” he says with a slight smile. “But certainly you would have a greater hold on it than anyone besides my master. And you would provide assistance to future guests, as I did. There is no more powerful role for you to have.”

“What if I don’t want power?” the woman says softly.

“Then you will be welcome to continue on your current path,” Igor says. “We will not stop you. All we are doing is making you an offer.”

“You are under no obligation whatsoever to take it,” the man says. “Do not feel guilt on my account; my wishes are mine, not yours.”

“…will I see my friends again?” the woman asks, her voice little more than a whisper.

Igor shakes his head. “Their role in your journey is done. While your bonds are great, they are no longer needed.”

The woman laughs, quietly, bitterly. “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” she says. “I haven’t seen any of them in years. I wanted to, but…life does not work as it should.”

“Then, instead of mourning them, you could help others find what you have lost,” Igor says. “Aid someone in developing their own bonds, in memory of yours.”

“We cannot force you,” the man repeats. “And if you accept, you will no longer be human. The very nature of your being will change.”

“Absorbing that much power requires a great cost,” Igor says. “You will not remember your previous self.”

The man shoots Igor a sharp look; perhaps he hadn’t known that bit.

The woman clenches her fists, just for a moment, before loosening them. “And if I refuse the offer, will I still remember?”

“That…I cannot say,” Igor says. “Anything that happens once you leave this room is beyond my jurisdiction.”

“We understand if you need a moment,” the man says, before returning his glare to Igor. 

They don’t say anything else to her; the woman is left to her own devices while the man whispers something in Igor’s ear. She can’t make it out, but she doesn’t think it’s especially friendly.

Regardless, she has her own thoughts to deal with. It’s quite a choice, the one they’ve given her. A chance of peace, or a surety of loss; but the peace is unknown, and the loss will return her to a world she has missed so, so dearly. Life after her journey was a joke--she could never be satisfied knowing that she would never again see such wonders. What sort of life can you have, when you have fought monsters with friends at your side, saved countless lives, lived more fully and wonderfully than almost anyone…and stepped away from it? 

She was a hero, and then she was nothing.

And now, she could be something again, if she wanted.

Oh, it burns in her, it does; these past years she’s wanted more than anything for her one year of glory to repeat. The life she returned to was listless, pale, compared to the wild colors of her journey.

The Velvet Room is far from colorless.

“I’ve made my decision,” she finds herself saying.

“And what have you decided?” Igor asks, his eyes gleaming.

“I accept your offer,” she says, and swallows the lump in her throat.

“Very well.” The man bows before her, and walks towards her, Compendium in hand. It occurs to her that she’s never touched it. As he holds it out to her, her fingertips graze the edges, leaving a slight spark on her skin, the echo of something she can’t define. In her hands, she feels the full weight of it, heavy both in mass and in significance. The thickness of the paper, the solidity of the binding, and now the faint swirls of something in her head, the tiny whispers…

“What else must I do?” she asks, her voice distant in her ears.

“Open it,” she barely hears Igor say. “To the first page.”

So she does.

It’s blank. Plain, cream-colored paper, lacking the elegant writing she’s seen in it countless times before. As if spellbound, she slowly lifts the second page…and the pages begin to move on their own, flipping faster and faster until she can only see a blur with a rising glow. The whispers multiply into a roar in her ears, the only other sound she can hear the whir of the whipping pages. Words, she realizes, familiar words; _Magician: Pixie, Level 2; Nekomata, Level 9; Jack Frost, Level 14,_ a long string of names and numbers echoing through her, permeating her, suffusing her very being.

A tidal wave of words overcomes her. And yet she can feel them carefully slotting into her mind; each in its place, each categorized, each exactly where it should be. Should have _always_ been. The words are more than familiar; they seep into her soul. Does--does she have one? The concept seems faint and distant to her now. The words, the words, the words…

Something overpowering and elegant flows into her. The final touches of the flood. Something extraordinary and utterly inhuman; no human could have withstood it, _she_ could not have withstood it, but now…

If she could see anything besides the Compendium, she might notice her hair lightening. In a handful of seconds it goes from black to pale gray, fading even further until the edge of white, to a shade not unlike the color of the pages. Her skin pales slightly. Her eyes…

The man watches in silence, putting together pieces in his head.

Eventually, the whir recedes. The pages slow, trailing off until the last one falls into place. The Compendium closes itself.

The woman stands still and silent. Raw power courses through her veins until it is calmed, soothed, refined into something more graceful. It is _her_ power, after all; it must obey her.

After many silent moments, the man bows once more. “Welcome to the Velvet Room,” he says. “Are you aware of your duties?”

She nods; of course she does. 

“I will bring you some more suitable attire,” the man says, and makes his exit through the door in the back.

(Has she always wondered what was behind that door?)

(Well, she knows it now, so surely it doesn’t matter.)

When he returns, she changes into her clothes. For a moment, she doesn’t know quite how to put them on--the hose is new to her--but she finishes it regardless.

She brushes back some of the hair that persists on sliding onto her face. “May I have something to deal with this?” she asks.

Igor produces a blue ribbon. She places it on her head, tying back some of her pale hair. “My thanks,” she says.

“I believe that is all,” the man says. “I must take my leave now; but it is an honor to meet you, sister. Perhaps we will meet again. Until then…please do take care of my master.”

“I shall perform my duties to the fullest,” she says. They bow to each other; and he leaves through another door, one she does not remember. As it closes, she is left alone with Igor.

“You’ll need a name, if you’re to work here,” he says in his smooth, cultured voice. “What do you think it should be?”

Nothing she can think of sounds quite right. “I think you would be a better judge of it than I,” she says, shrugging slightly.

“Very well. What do you think of…let’s see. Margaret?”

That one sounds about right. Margaret. 

Margaret picks up the Compendium and feels the hum of power deep within her bones. She smiles, just slightly; it feels like an old friend.

“That will do,” she says.

Margaret takes her place at her master’s side, and begins to wait.

The story of a wild card does not have to end.

\---

The cycle continues. 

Margaret meets and serves many guests; some respectful and awed, some not. There is always something to like about them, even if she can’t always pinpoint why. A boy who always asked questions she wasn’t allowed to answer. A girl who brought her own notebook and carefully wrote down every Persona combination she discovered. A boy whose frequent smiles did not meet his sorrowful eyes.

One day, in a quiet period between guests, Igor beckons to her. She takes a seat by his side, as always. “A curious situation has occurred,” he says. 

They often do. “What of it?” she asks.

“A previous guest has been struck by illness,” he explains. “She is not expected to last the night. In your tenure, you have not experienced the death of a guest, if memory serves?”

Margaret shakes her head. They age, of course, and some of them should be advanced in their years by now, but she hasn’t felt the flicker of a light going out.

“My previous assistant left on a journey some time ago,” Igor continues. “You know as well as I that he has not returned. I do not think he will. He has his reasons. You have served me admirably in his stead, but I ask you…is there anything you wish for?”

Margaret furrows her eyebrows. “Is this a test, sir?”

Igor looks somewhat offended. “Of course not! It is a question. I hope you will answer it.”

Margaret thinks. She has not wanted for anything that she can recall. She _has_ left the Room, a few times, when a guest needed it, but she never felt the need to stay. She is perfectly content where she is.

“Not that I can think of,” Margaret says, shaking her head.

“I see.” Igor purses his lips. “I ask you this, Margaret, because it is customary to offer a newly-deceased former guest a choice. They do not have to accept it, of course. But wild cards are a remarkable people, and it does not seem fair to let them exit their realm without acknowledging their service.”

“You wish to make her a resident,” Margaret realizes. “An assistant to an assistant?”

“Of sorts. A sister, at any rate. Does the idea bother you?”

Margaret shakes her head again. “It’s a bit lonely here, sometimes,” she says. “It might be nice to have a sister.” She hesitates. “If my brother left, does that mean I must leave to make room for her?”

“Oh, no, do not worry about that,” Igor says with his usual smile. “You will have some freedom to move around, but by no means are you required to leave my service.”

“Very well,” Margaret says, after a moment. “If you wish to bring her in, I have no objection.”

“Excellent. All we can do now is wait.”

…and they do wait, for several hours, before Igor suddenly frowns.

“What is it?” Margaret asks, perturbed by his expression; she hasn’t often seen it.

He laughs, then, the frown gone. “A bit of a surprise,” he says. “Our former guest was struck by an illness that swept through an entire town. She’d only moved there recently; she did not know, and indeed I had not noticed, that she was not the only former guest in the area.”

Margaret’s eyebrows come together. “Sir?”

Igor smiles widely. “How would you feel about having a little brother?”

\---

The woman comes first. She examines her surroundings with a wary eye. “You’ve redecorated,” she says. “It is most…fancy.”

“The appearance of the Velvet Room changes with each guest,” Margaret says. “It has been many different things.”

The woman’s eyes widen. “Has it? Oh, you must tell me what they were! I want details!”

Margaret recalls this guest. She was…interesting. “Perhaps later,” Margaret says. “For now, we have something to discuss.”

Igor makes the offer. The woman puts her hand to her chin and stares into the distance. “Hmm,” she says. “Hmmmm. I must give up _all_ my memories?”

“I’m afraid so,” Igor says.

Margaret finds herself somewhat disquieted. Igor didn’t tell _her_ about this. As far as she knows, she was created for this position. Igor is the master of many things, after all; if he created the Velvet Room, he certainly must be able to create beings to serve him.

She wonders what, exactly, it was that Nicolas went searching for.

The woman pouts. “Oh well,” she says. “I suppose I shall enjoy making new ones. My old ones were rather boring of late, after all.”

“You accept the offer, then?” Igor asks.

“Indeed! This all sounds _so_ intriguing. Is there a ritual I must do?” The woman looks excited to lose everything she has ever known. An interesting guest, indeed.

Margaret holds out the Compendium to her. Igor did tell her about this part. “Open it to the first page,” she says.

The woman does so with reverence, taking the Compendium as if it were some precious treasure. “Ohhhh,” she breathes, as she turns the page. “Yes, that is _fascinating…”_

The pages begin to blur, and Margaret can hear the faint traces of the Compendium merging itself with the woman’s mind. In her own mind, she feels strands of energy slipping inside, twisting around with curiosity. The Compendium has not left her; she is only sharing it, now.

She smiles. It is not an unwelcome sensation.

The woman stands, blinking her new yellow eyes. “Welcome to the Velvet Room,” Margaret says. She remembers words said to her. “Are you aware of your duties?”

The woman seems to think for a moment before nodding swiftly. “Of course!” she says. “You must be my sister. I hope we will get along.”

“You will require some more appropriate attire,” Margaret says. She carefully takes the Compendium from her new sister’s hands and places it on the table in front of Igor. “I will go fetch some.”

As she enters a different part of the Velvet Room through one of the other doors, she considers what sort of clothing her new sister would be best suited to wear. The clothes Nicolas found for her were fitting enough, if a bit foreign; will the Room provide something itself, or will it be up to her?

She finds herself presented with an outfit she might not have chosen. But it is the will of the Velvet Room, and she has no reason to question it.

When she returns to the main body of the Room, she finds that her new sister is flipping through the Compendium. “I like the look of that one,” her sister says, pointing at a particular picture. “It is _most_ daring.”

Margaret presents her with the clothes silently. Her sister takes them and examines them before pronouncing them perfect, and strips to put them on without abandon. Once they’re on, she twirls around, perhaps a little disappointed with how little the skirt of her dress swishes at her movement.

“Now then, it occurs to me that I do not have a name,” her sister says with a frown. “Do you give me one, or may I choose?”

“Whichever you wish,” Igor says.

Her sister purses her lips. “I think…I think you know more names than I do,” she says. “I am very new, after all.”

“Very well.” Igor thinks for a moment. “Elizabeth,” he says. “Do you like it?”

“Elizabeth! Yes, it is marvelous,” says Elizabeth. “And you are Igor, and you are Margaret. Such interesting names!”

Margaret doesn’t think they’re all that interesting, but to each their own, she supposes.

“And now, I would prefer to give you some time to settle in, but we’ve another matter to attend to,” Igor says. He explains the situation.

“A little brother,” Elizabeth says thoughtfully. “I already have a sister. Do I _need_ a brother?”

“The extra company may be nice,” Margaret points out. She doesn’t actually know what it will be like having another resident around, much less two, but she is not opposed to the idea of a family. Her older brother left shortly after they met. It will be…intriguing, at least, to see what it is like to have siblings present in her life.

“Oh, if we must,” Elizabeth says with a sigh.

A new figure slowly fades into view, several feet in front of them. A young man, this time, looking rather puzzled.

“This is…unexpected,” he says. “Am I dead? I did think I would die soon, but I didn’t think I’d return here, of all places.”

Margaret remembers him, as well. He was only from a few iterations ago. Sad, that he had so little time after his journey. He was a nice young man. A little hapless, at times, but nice.

He glances towards Elizabeth. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recall you being here…?” he asks hesitantly.

Elizabeth _hmph_ s. “I am new,” she informs him. “A recent creation by our master. I think he did an excellent job in designing me.”

“Oh. Well. I suppose I must be dead, anyway,” he says. “The last thing I can remember is…not especially pleasant.” He winces.

A plague. No, his and Elizabeth’s deaths must not have been easy ones.

Igor explains it all again. The young man gradually looks less puzzled, but he does not become as excited as Elizabeth. If anything, he only seems sad.

“When I was dying, I wondered if I would ever see my friends again,” he says. “They didn’t live all that far away, really. I always meant to visit them again, but things kept cropping up…I thought, if I survive, I’ll go see them.”

He gives a wan smile. “I suppose that’s off the table now.”

“If you continue the expected path of the deceased, you may see them in some form or another,” Igor says. “Is that what you wish?”

The young man stares at the ground. “I don’t know,” he says. “I didn’t think this would be a possibility. If I take your offer, will that path be closed to me?”

“I do not know,” Igor says. “In the past, residents have left. Most of them have not returned. They tend not to tell me where they’re going.”

Margaret wonders about _most,_ and how the only other resident she’s seen was Nicolas, and wonders if _most_ might mean _all._

“I was never devout, until I became a guest here,” the man says, looking around the room, perhaps in fondness, perhaps not. “After that, the world seemed so wide that I thought it was obvious that there were things even greater. Now I’m offered to see if that’s true, or to stay somewhere separate, and never find out.”

_“I_ think our role here is much more fascinating than anything that might exist beyond,” Elizabeth says primly. “But that’s just me.”

“Elizabeth, you’ve only been here for ten minutes,” Margaret reminds her.

“I am very forward-thinking.”

The young man smiles again. “I can’t say the idea of returning to the way my life was back then doesn’t appeal. My current life is…not boring, exactly, but far-flung from those days. But I wouldn’t be doing that, would I? I’d stay here. No more heroics. Just a room and a book.”

“And our master,” Elizabeth scolds him. “And us. Do not forget about that.”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” the young man says, glaring at her. “There’s not much of a comparison, is there? I’d rejoin the battle, but on the sidelines, not in the fray.”

“If it is a comfort, you would not remember your misgivings,” Igor says.

The young man raises an incredulous eyebrow. “That’s not much of a comfort, really.”

“You are being offered a marvelous opportunity!” Elizabeth says. “I cannot see why you would refuse. It’s quite silly of you.”

“A person is made of their memories,” the young man says quietly. “Losing them would be losing myself. I would die, but my soul, such as it is, would not move on--I would be nothing. If there was anything left of me, it would be trapped here. Do you think that is marvelous?”

Elizabeth shrugs. “Some people believe there to be nothing after death. This would be no different. But you would at least die with the knowledge that some part of you remains--that is far more than most people have.”

Igor flexes his fingers. “I think we should give our guest some time to think,” he says. “Margaret, Elizabeth, would you come with me, please?”

As the three residents exit into some other area within the Velvet Room, the young man finds himself alone for the first time in a while. He’d been in a hospital ward for nearly a week now. Always doctors and nurses, always other patients. Always the oppressive air of fear.

He thought often about falling asleep and not waking up. He thought it might be nice.

Here and now, though, free of pain, back in a place that represents the happiest period in his life--the thought of falling asleep does not seem so attractive.

He feels deeply cold, all of a sudden. The hospital ward was thick with heat, and yet not as warm as the muggy summer of not very long ago. Even the bone-chilling winter was warm, in its way. And the exhilaration of battle, the smiles of his friends, the joy of accomplishing something important with people at his side who felt the same…

None of his friends ever came to this room. 

This is a horrible choice they have given him. If he accepts, he may as well walk into the void; if he declines, he may discover that whatever comes after death is just as unsatisfying as his new life. Reincarnation? He wouldn’t really be awake for that either, would he? Heaven? Looking down on the world and waiting for his friends to die?

Or a blue room, and an eternity of helping people save the world?

An eternity he wouldn’t see.

It is a horrible choice.

And yet, with a crooked smile, when they return, he makes it.

“How do you like the sound of Theodore?”

Elizabeth interrupts. “Too long,” she says firmly. “Theo.”

Well, all right.

Margaret observes her new siblings with a curious eye. She suspects she has figured out some things that Igor has not been telling her, but it hardly matters at this point. It has been quite a while. 

She wonders when Elizabeth will begin to suspect, and if Theo ever will; unless he too sees the creation of a new resident, he is unlikely to be concerned with it. But he may, eventually. 

What happens, she wonders, to the residents of this place? Are they all fated to leave, for one reason or another? Is it possible to return? Will she ever have a question that cannot be answered here? 

The Velvet Room has not always had an attendant.

The Velvet Room will always have an attendant.

Or two, or three. Strange little families brought together by destinies concluded. A room, a book, a master, a guest; the picture is not complete without someone to serve them. 

For however long the servitude may be.


End file.
